DailyJim: Trump’s bill and how we can’t demonize others without demonizing ourselves

Hello everyone, welcome to another DailyJim. Today is Thursday, July 3rd, 2025. And I want to talk about Trump's bill and how we can't demonize others without demonizing ourselves.

So, apparently there is this huge bill that's going through Congress right now, that is going to add a ton of debt to the American economy—I believe, something like 5 trillion or something—and reduce Medicaid significantly and I think it closed USAID or something else closed USAID. There's lots of other things that are going on with it and increase the money for immigration, et cetera, et cetera. Lots of tax cuts for certain groups and not other groups.

And apparently he wants to rush this through because tomorrow is July 4th, Independence Day, and maybe he wants to beat his chest. So as you can hear, there's some anger and frustration in my voice over how he tends to behave now I saw a comment on twitter somebody was talking about how uh let's just get on with the vote uh why are we letting these trump haters these trump hating congressmen delay things and it hit me it's like I think I even responded I hate the bill I don't hate trump.

And even I don't know if I hate the bill. It's just there are things in the bill that frustrate me and really confuse me and worry me, scare me. And so for me, that's a starting place of having a conversation. It's a starting place of working together with somebody to resolve issues, to resolve conflicts, to come together and see how can we move forward together and see, what are you struggling with? What am I struggling with? What are your constituents feeling? How are my constituents feeling? How can we try to solve this problem together?

Now, the challenge that I have with some of the bill and the challenge that I have with politics in general in the US these days, and probably around the world more so, is that we seem to be demonizing each other more. We seem to be dehumanizing each other more. So one aspect of the bill is to drastically increase immigration, not immigration law, not make law simpler, not make it easier for people to comprehend, understand, follow the law, but to increase the enforcement.

And I'm not against that in itself. I think what I'm against is often the underlying rationale, which is that these illegal aliens or just humans, right? We can call them humans. We don't have to call them aliens. That they're evil in some way. That they're coming here, they're raping our children, they're killing our children, they're doing this, they're screwing the system, they're not paying any taxes. It's this assumption of evil. It's assumption of maliciousness that frustrates me, really frustrates me. Because for me, it says that the person who says this is no longer connecting to the humanity of the other person, no longer recognizes how this person might feel, no longer recognizes their sadness, their fears, their excitement, their joy, their gratitude, etc.

And it's not just with that. You could say with Medicaid as well. I believe they're putting a more stringent work requirement for many places. And for me, again, I think people assume, "Oh, okay, these people who are on Medicaid are lazy and they're cheating the system. And, you know, they're really just stealing from us." Again, assumed maliciousness.

For me, it says you're not connecting to the humanity of that person. You're not recognizing the emotional conflicts that this person is actually going through. Now to do this, okay, let me say, sorry, before I jump into it, and the people who reflexively go, "Trump is getting rid of Medicaid, so screw Trump, he's evil." Again, if we assume evil intent, we're often not doing a very good job at recognizing the humanity of the other person.

So how can we how are we doing this how do we demonize somebody else it's often by demonizing ourselves how do we dehumanize somebody else it's often by dehumanizing ourselves because when we lose that connection to the way for us to stop feeling their sadness is to stop feeling our sadness it's to stop feeling sadness it's to stop recognizing the feeling of sadness to disconnect from that feeling. It's the disconnect from the feeling of anger. It's the disconnect from the contexts and the conflicts that we are experiencing in our lives. If there are 10 things that are causing me anger and I only focus on the one, I say, "These illegal immigrants, they're coming in here and they're taking my job." And I don't recognize the anger that I have towards myself for not trying to find a new job path, the anger that I have at the banks for maybe the foreclosure that I had to go through 15 years ago, the anger that I have that maybe I'm developing a medical issue and the doctors can't figure it out. So it's maybe an anger at the world or life itself. But if I'm disconnecting from the medical issue, if I'm disconnecting from the foreclosure, if I'm disconnecting from my not choosing another career path, and I'm only focusing on the immigrant, then I am dehumanizing myself as well. Because it's not just the immigrant. And it can make my life a living hell, because now I think it's just the immigrant. It's not the 100% of the problem. Maybe 90% of it comes from other conflicts, but we've lost that connection to ourselves, we perceive it's coming from the immigrant, or we perceive it's coming from the person on Medicaid, or we perceive it's coming from Donald Trump.

And so what has helped me so much is when I recognize, "Aha! emotional combat—because it pulls me back into myself and I go, "Aha! What are all the conflicts I have going on in my life right now? I have conflict with money. I have conflict with family. I have a conflict with romance. I have a conflict with education. Maybe I have a conflict with work. I have a conflict with my body. I have a conflict with da-da-da-da-da-da, right? If I do that, I recognize I have a lot going on. But merely by doing that, connecting to myself and recognizing I have a lot going on, it almost forces me to recognize, "Wait, you know what? Other people have a lot going on too."

And so I think when I see people dehumanizing others, again, it's easy for me to jump in and be like, "You're such an evil person." But then I'm losing the context of my own life, I am losing the connection to my own self, to my body, to my experience, and once I start to reconnect to that it's easier to see that other people are going through a lot of stuff and they're just not aware of it, they're really just not aware of it, and I sometimes in the past I would get so angry that people don't have these skills.

But people are trying their best. Man, how can you have these skills maybe when you grew up in a family in a workplace and a church or a you know a religious organization or a community and people the other people didn't have those skills? It's really hard to just gain skills with the snap of a finger, so a lot of us are just trying our best, man. We are thrashing around in the deep end of a pool or in the ocean with lots of waves. And then people are asking us why we're not good at tying our shoes. "Bro, I can't tie my shoes when I'm trying to not drown. Get me out of the pool maybe, and then I can learn how to tie my shoes." I don't know if this analogy flies right now, but this idea like.

Dehumanization and demonization of other peoples is when we do it to ourselves first. And one of the fastest ways to get out of it is to reconnect with ourselves.

Just realize we're trying our best. There's a lot going on. There's always a lot going on. Day in, day out. Always a new thing. Even if it's a new exciting thing, there's so much uncertainty. More and more these days with the internet.

And it's okay. It's okay. We're trying our best and we're going to keep trying our best. So I hope this helps you process a little bit of this bill because I know some of you, maybe you're super excited. Some of you are super scared, super angry. And it's not a final thing. It's not, I mean, things come and things go. But what I worry about is that as things like this happen, and we start to demonize each other more. We start to demonize ourselves more. We start to disconnect from each other. We start to disconnect from ourselves. And as we do that, I worry society starts to fall apart. Individually, we start to fall apart. And I want us to come back together.

So I hope this helps you process a little bit. I'm going to end right now and talk to you all on Monday. So for my Americans out there, happy 4th of July tomorrow. And may you find some pride and some strength in being American and also just in being a human and recognize we're all trying our best around the world. Take care. .